Thursday, December 2, 2010

social tools and cloud computing Week 10

This week's material focused on social bookmarking as well as cloud computing.  Social bookmarking is a service that allows users to visit websites and save the websites to a neutral server like delicious.  The user is able to categorize, adjust, name and describe the bookmark to make it easier to identify at a later date.  For instance if a person stumbles upon a website they like pertaining to travel arrangements, they can label the bookmark as a travel bookmark and describe the service that it provides so that they will know what it is later.  There is also a website called stumbleupon that allows for users to get randomly transferred to various websites within certain categories.  If someone is interested in rock music, the website can help find other websites pertaining to rock music that the user would probably never stumble upon.  Cloud computing was the other subject of the material this week and specifically google docs.  Cloud computing is a very interesting idea in that it allows for a user to submit and edit content existing on the web and rather then send a copy of the work to someone, they simple allow the other person access to the online content.  This takes away the need to send many emails and make many copies of the same thing that inevitably vary and become confusing and overwhelming.  When working in a group for example, all members can make adjustments to the same document rather than having to send around copies of the various versions of the document.

I think that cloud computing is much more relevant to my major and profession than social bookmarking.  Google docs could be useful to every major but also very useful to film making.  When moving from pre-production to production there are many different versions of the same script that change all the time.  It would be much easier for everyone to log into a google doc and view the script as apposed to having to make changing and send multiple copies.  It would also be useful for scheduling purposes as well.  Coordinating all of the people in a production could benefit greatly if there was a type of cloud computing scheduler or calender.  I'm sure there is one out there and I will definitely look into google docs into the future for projects.

LINK: http://www.airset.com/AirSet.jsp#app.Home

The link I found is for a website that utilizes cloud computing to organize schedules and contacts and also allows you to create groups.  I've already stressed that I think calendar applications for cloud computers in very beneficial but having contacts for a large business or just a social butterfly would also help.  The service called airset allows you to hook up to the program using a smart phone or computer.  Airset also allows you to safely backup files from your computer onto the "cloud" so that you can access them from anywhere.  I'm sure many companies are designing cloud software including google but it is good to see that cloud computing is expanding to include many different aspects a person may need.  I was not aware of any of this technology before but after looking around the internet I've found that there is a lot of different options to "cloud compute" and there are many different applications that seem practical and beneficial for pretty much every type of use a person may need.

Week 14. Games for Teaching and Learning

This week's material covered how games are being used for educational purposes.  After watching the videos and reading the articles in this week's section I couldn't help but feel somewhat removed from what apparently is going all around me.  I had never heard of "second life" but apparently it is very popular and teaching people things over the internet community that were once taught in a classroom.  Through "second life" players are able to become immersed in the learning material as they act out plays in digital English theaters or explore ancient Rome.  There are also scavenger hunts that allow for students to explore definitions and find information on their own as apposed to having information told to them.  Avatars can even be quizzed by their environment and different objects.  The articles in this weeks section also showed examples of games that helped education on politics, fast food and even computer science.  People can go to a political candidates' site and play their game that centers around health reform and hopefully learn about the issue.  The McDonalds game I found very disturbing.  It goes through the process of farming and delivering food to customers but conveniently excludes the part where the cute digital cows go into a Wonka-esque machine for processing and little hamburger patties come out.  I'm not sure I agree with tailoring games towards kids that highlight products with health risks and lacking any nutritional value.  The computer science game was a bit dull for me and basically just added up numbers.  Then again I no interest in computer science.

I cannot think of any way that learning games could really help in the film industry as film is highly creative and too technical for simple games.  I could maybe see how second life would be important in the film industry in getting information out or possibly even screening movies in the online community.  I don't think I would have any interest in doing it but I'm sure there are filmmakers who would like to gain exposure by showing work over the internet community through second life or other avatar based games.  I don't really think the time requirements for making films lends itself to being able to create an entire online social community.  Film making is a very collaborative process where social interaction is very important.  I think that online gaming or social media takes away from these aspects and detracts from the most important aspects of film making.

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2010/08/falco-sl-machinima.html

I found a very strange link that pertains to film making within the online game community of "second life."  There is a German film maker who takes footage from within second life and cuts it up into movies.  The movies he makes are god awful and as soon as the first one started playing I broke out into laughter by the juxtaposition of serious dialogue coming out of computer characters' mouths but I have to admit it is clever in some weird way.  There are a lot of people in this online game who would consume this bazaar content and appreciate it.  I'm not sure I would consider this film making as much as animating but whatever.  Interesting look into how games are evolving into the film industry and as far as learning goes, the editing of these movies can teach real life practical editing skills I guess.

 

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Open Source (Week 12)

Open source software is software with a source code that is open to be manipulated or modified.  Open source software is usually free and comes without restrictions on downloading or advertising as well.  Open source software can be the combination of many developers' code.  Websites like sourceforge.com allow for software developers to publish their source codes onto the internet and allow for other developers to see the code and tweak or change the code.  Open source software ranges in its uses.  from web browsing with firefox, checking mail with thunderbird, word processing with open office, or even photo editing with gimp.  Open source software is definitely an original creation of the internet generation.  Much like the internet itself, open source is a collaborative effort.  There are no disks or dvds to download and also, much like everything else on the internet, the content is free. Open source programmers have figured out ways around many costly software packages provided by major companies. 

Open source software is very important in my major and field.  The film industry is growing daily and tools are becoming cheaper and more accessible.  Avidemux for windows allows for pretty much anyone with any computer to edit video non-linearly.  This means that what becomes most important for film makers isn't the technology used, but rather the quality of the story and technique.  This also means that kids can start messing around with relatively advanced programs much earlier.  I used to have to hook up two VCRs together and edit tape to tape when I was really young, now kids can start utilizing computer programs early on which gives them a head start.  Having cheaper alternatives provided through open source software also forces major companies to bring their prices down in order to compete.  The same AVID system that was worth thousands upon thousands of dollars just a few years ago has come down in price drastically.  This can allow for film makers to put more of a films budget into other aspects of the picture.

LINK: http://open-source.gbdirect.co.uk/migration/benefit.html

The article I found starts out by describing open source software as being much more focused on quality over software features.  Where commercial software attempts to load a program with features that make the product more marketable and easier to sell, open source software doesn't have to worry about marketing and focuses more on stability within the program.  The people who make open source software regard peer recognition as very important.  They seek to impress their peers with clean design, reliability and maintainability.  This trickles down to the normal program user who gets a very efficiently designed program with a lot of reliability.  The article also describes that a relatively unknown benefit of open source software is auditability.  This is the idea that where a consumer has to trust a commercial company that says their program is safe and secure, open source software isn't hidden.  Anyone can physically look at the source code and determine if the claims made are indeed true.

Distance Education (Week 11)

The whole idea of distance technology is to provide educational services to students off site that is comparable to the education given to students on site.  Many private as well as public institutions offer distance learning including almost all universities.  The types of distance education varies and can include correspondence through regular mail, internet correspondence, courses over the television or radio, courses downloaded from a CD as well as courses offered over a mobile device.  However in recent years, distance education has come to blend the many forms.  The benefits of distance learning include the ability to learn at your own pace.  It also allows for adults to continue their education in situations where they are unable to attend classes regularly.  The draw backs of distance education include; the students enrolled in the course have to be very motivated in order to get the benefits out of the programs.  Since there are no ways of forcing people to watch materials or participate, students have to motivate themselves or they can fall very behind in the course. 

I don't see distance learning really helping me personally in any way but I could see how it could help other people wanting to get into the film industry.  Many of the programs that do things like editing, compositing or music composition are extremely elaborate and very technical programs.  I could definitely see benefits the makers of the programs to provide online courses that help get users started using their products.  There are many websites that already exist that post forums where users help each other out but I think a company issued distance learning program would still help out a person just adopting a new technology or program emensely.

LINK: http://www.mediacollege.com/video/editing/

I found a very interesting website that provides tutorials on some of the popular video editing programs as well as other technological tutorials.  The website mediacollege.com seems to give out the basic tutorials for free but requires a payment to see more advanced examples.  The way the website works is that it allows you to select the specific program you want to use, then it gives you a list of topics that you might be interested in learning and then explains how each is done.  I think this form of distance learning is unique in that it doesn't make content once students are enrolled, it makes the content before it has students and then waits for interest to grow.  I have seen that there are tutorials on the internet but haven't really thought of them as distance education until now.  I think that this is the most practical form of distance education for people in the film industry.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Digital Story Telling (Week 8 pt 2)

The selection of articles from the LA times are good proof of the importance and shift to digital storytelling.  The articles all focus around digital technology and how movie's and loads of other media are being offered and provided through the internet.  The internet has become extremely important to the entertainment industry and has caused people to raise their expectations for what they get off of the internet.  People are not satisfied with simple html websites anymore, they want interactive and progressive sites.  Web 2.0 content and digital storytelling is increasingly important.  Being able to use technology to communicate to an audience is critical.  The material from the week also describes the different formats of audio that exist.  There are basically two types of digital audio categories; uncompressed or compressed.  The formats that are predominate in uncompressed are wav and aiff.  compressed formats include mp3 and OGG.  Compressed takes an original file and shrinks it to a more manageable size.  This causes loss of some quality.  Uncompressed is the entire raw information without any loss of quality.

Digital Story telling and audio are very important topics in my major and profession.  Movies are stories told digitally now through editing software and audio mixing.  Knowing which types of audio formats to use and the differences between them is very important.  For example when storing audio files for later use you should save them as uncompressed files so they can be manipulated in the future.  When releasing audio files online or for soundtracks you can compress them to make them easier to download for other people.  Also when mixing sound for a theater it is important to make sure that the sound is at full quality as the sound system will play all the intricacies of your composition. 

http://www.mediacollege.com/audio/quality/

The link I found relates to sound quality.  It is from mediacollege.com and troubleshoots some very common problems that people face with sound quality.  It breaks the problems into categories, distortion for example, and then explores different solutions within the category.  The website does a good job at considering a large number of issues that a user could face and addressing them all in depth.  This could be useful for creating effective podcasts with quality audio or for other outlets of digital story telling as well.

Podcast Blog

http://www.filefront.com/17416825/podcast_1-2.aif

I could definitely see how podcasts could be used for presentations.  Even knowing how to use sound and edit sound in garage band or audacity can prove useful for most professions I think.  Sound is a big part of effective presentations and is very important.  I don't think podcasts would be helpful to film making itself but could be helpful in the promotion of a film and as a special type of feature for people to be able to stay involved and get information early about a project.  Sound editing itself is definitely extremely important and can make or break a production.  People are more forgiving of bad images than bad sound.  Bad sound can jar an audience right out of the intended experience.

Digital Story Telling

LINK: http://vimeo.com/13873907

Digital Story telling is at the root of everything I do in my profession.  Film making is essential the combination of many different forms of digital story telling and making them all work together.  The example I provided is a commercial I did that uses kinetic typography with animation elements, sound effects and voice over to try to give an overall sense of the restaurant and the atmosphere I was marketing.  In creating this commercial I had to use programs like Shake for compositing and animating, Final Cut Pro for editing and Logic for sound design and music composition, all tools of digital story telling.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Visual literacy Blog Week 6

Visual literacy is the ability to understand visual images and also the ability to use visual images to communicate and relay your thoughts to others.  As technology becomes increasingly more prevalent, it has become more important to use visuals to communicate and be able to decipher others' messages in their images.  With programs like photoshop people are able to manipulate images immensely.  In a video provided in the material there was a video of extreme photoshop makeover.  By changing the color grading and erasing imperfections or artifacts that are not wanted, it is possible to reinforce the message of an image or even change the meaning of an image completely after the fact.

Visual literacy is critical in my major and and profession.  Everything I do is based on and judged by the images I capture and create.  Understanding how to change the meaning of an image and knowing how the image is received by an audience can be make or break for a specific project.  As far as marketing goes and commercial work, there are many techniques marketers and graphic designers use to reinforce their points and appeal to their respective audiences.  A commercial on the television is completely dependent on visual literacy.  The images show in a commercial give the audience a definition of the project in their own mind so it is important to convey the product so that it will be received correctly.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/148577/mediavisual_literacy_art_education_cigarette_ad_deconstruction/index.html

The Link I found from redorbit.com deconstructs a cigarette ad and analyzes what the ad men attempt to do and what the anti-tobacco people attempt to do.  It describes how lighting is used to emphasize and how certain colors can make different impacts.  Both sides of the argument attempt a similar cause, appeal to teenagers who are receptive and try to get them to go along with your cause.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Podcast Blog Part 2 (week 9)

The material covered in the second half of week 8 pertained to audio and podcasts.  A podcast a series of audio broadcasts that are downloaded off of the internet.  Podcasts can either be downloaded for listening to in the future or streamed for listening live.  Podcasts use Ogg vorbis or mp3 as the audio files so it isn't very difficult to find a device that can play the files.  The name derives from the idea that it is a broadcast originally designed for the ipod.  Podcasting is still relatively new, only catching real attention since 2004, but it is gaining steam quickly and has become a key word in the technology vernacular.


Podcasting can be important in my major and profession.  Marketing is very important for films and obviously commercials.  Podcasts are another way to reach the desired audience.  Many podcasts have thousands of listeners, this is very lucrative for advertisers.  Podcasts have yet to really define themselves in terms of how they want to make profit but advertising on them is certainly an option.  Podcasts are also ways to relay information out to the public about a project.  Pixar's "Cars" for example used podcasts to release a series of behind the scenes clips to start to promote the movie and shows like "Battlestar Galactica" provided podcasts with the creators talking about the show and their inspirations.

http://blog.experiencecurve.com/archives/uncommon-uses-podcasting

I found a very interesting site that details some uncommon uses of the podcasts.  People are using podcasts to broadcast serial plays and novels that people read in parts.  Unofficial museum tours are being podcasted so that people can download the  file and go to a museum and listen to a tour on their own IPOD or MP3 player.   Music lessons are also being podcasted in segments so that people don't get overwhelmed by a full course, as if in book format, and their progress is steady.  It seems that podcasts are still so new that the possibilities are seemingly endless at this point.  I'll be interested to see how the podcast evolves in the future.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Week 8 Material Blog Part 1

The first part of week 8's material focused on digital technology as a subcategory of digital storytelling.  Digital technology uses representative data consisting of 1's and 0's to represent what either a picture, video or audio clip is that can be later translated and reconverted to its original medium.  Analog technology is a pure physical representation of the source.  The advantage to digital is a much smaller less expensive result that, for most purposes, suites the need of the application.  Digital has been improving and coming closer to being indistinguishable from analog by utilizing higher resolutions with more mega pixels or faster sampling rates for audio at high bit rates.  However analog is still way ahead when it comes to pure quality.

This all is very relevant to my major as camera's and sound are the most important tools for film production.  Knowing what decisions to make regarding the use of digital and analog is very important as it determines costs and quality.  Where it is much cheaper to use digital, analog sources, like film, offer much higher quality.  Having directed and worked on both analog productions using 35mm and 16mm film, as well as digital medium in the form of uncompressed HD it is clear that both mediums have their pros and cons.  Understanding the differences is crucial to making your final product effective whether its a commercial production or a film.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/tg-daily-hands-4k-red-camera-unwrapping-lamborghini-video-cameras,5156.html

The website I found is a description and review of a very interesting relatively new digital technology for a camera called RED.  Where HD uses 1080p resolution, RED uses 4000p resolution.  This is important as it is a big step for digital in approaching analog quality.  Where film is still unmatched in its contrast and technical factors, digital is getting very close and to the common viewer is virtually identical.  This means lower cost for films and an easier more fluid shooting environment.  On a production using film, time has to be taken out every 10 minutes of filming time to load new film into the cameras.  With digital it is possible to continuously film uninterrupted. 

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Concept Map: Film Production

I've attached a bubble map that outlines the various social media options that could be used in Film Production.  Here's the concept map.

Full Link is:
http://www.gliffy.com/publish/2249224/

Week 5 Blog pt 2

Open source software was the topic of the second part of this weeks material (the third part being word clouds).  I had heard of open source software before but didn't really know what it meant and I don't think I would have ever known had Stephen Fry's elegant British accent not informed me.  Open source software is software where the source code is not locked, rather open.  People can not only see the original programmers' source code but they can also modify it.  The GNU and Linux duo set out to provide an open source option to people because the creators felt it a right for the people to have an option that can be altered to fit their specific needs. 

Open Source software can be relevant to telecommunications and film production.  Editing Software can be very demanding on a computer and Composing software even more so.  Being able to customize a computer to suite these specific needs might be beneficial in these circumstances.  I could see how a large production company would be interested in this because it gives them versatility.  All people using their computers would have a custom layout designed to fit that companies needs.  All editing bays would be set up for editing, all pro-tools stations would be for composing, Autodesk Maya stations for 3d modeling and animation, etc.

http://www.b-independent.com/production/foss1.htm

The article I've attached talks about how open source software is redefining the roles in the movie industry.  Within the last few years affordable programs have come out on the market that allow pretty much anyone to perform basic editing and post production tasks.  The article talks about how people are using open source software to optimize their needs and streamline their work environment.  It gives the example of Firefox's email service Thunderbird as an open source program that is completely free off of the internet.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Week 5 Blog pt 1

Understanding learning behaviors was the topic of the material covered in the first part of week 5.  The slide show presentation explained the different learning theories, including behaviorism, information process learning, and constructivism.  Classical conditioning was discussed as a way to use repetition and pattern to reinforce specific rewards.  There is a sort of cause-effect learning relationship.  In information process learning the brain is thought of as a computer.  There is a focus on inside the brain as it registers information, processes, stores and retrieves information.  In Constructivism people are allowed to construct unique knowledge as they learn through experiences.  Activities with meaning create authentic experiences.

Thinking about how people learn can be very helpful to my major and profession.  In telecommunications I am asked to present ideas and pitch things to groups of people.  By understanding what is effective in getting my point across I can be much more effective in my pitches.  This also applies to marketing and commercials that I do.  By knowing what people learn from it is easier to market products to consumers.  Through use of repetition people can become familiar with a commercial and are more likely to buy that product.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Educational-Marketing---Learning-Styles-Across-Cultures&id=4037811

The article I've attached describes how learning styles translate across cultures.  Different learning styles must be used in order to obtain a broad reach of information.  By using multiple techniques for example, a marketing firm, can appeal to many different cultures with the same advertisement.  On the contrary if a product is designed for a very specific market segment, using limited learning styles may target then better and separate them from the rest of the crowd.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

week 4 material

After going through the week four material, I learned a lot about the differences between hypermedia and multimedia and how they contrast mixed media in fine art.  Where mixed media used multiple forms of art to create a single piece, multimedia is even broader.  Multimedia is inclusive of audio and video as well.  Hypermedia uses links to move a user around in a non-linear fashion.  One of the power point documents describes a benefit of multimedia as being the ability to accommodate many different learning style's at once.  Hypermedia promotes proactive learning, meaning a user will have to organized their thoughts in a unique ways that should provide some insight within the user.

This material is very important to people in my major and going into my profession.  Film production and telecommunications are based on visual and audible stimuli.  Being aware of how these elements are formed and crafted to create meaning can be very important.  Also, as more and more content becomes web-based, its is of increased importance to be able to match the quality of competition on the web.  People on the internet don't settle for a what a newspaper can do, provide a single article, they want links to sources, or videos, or even audio clips.  Being able to organize multimedia is very important to telecommunication majors.

http://www.hypermedianews.com/CNN/tabid/69/Default.aspx

The link I've attached above shows the importance of hypermedia in news.  Through the portal, hypermedianews.com, a user is able to move through all major news networks and scan over their major stories.  By clicking on a linked story the user to brought to the web page where for instance, a large weather Doppler ticks away at the top of the page under the words, "Karl now a hurricane."  The site also provides video web casts from meteorologists.  They make it very simple to go back to the portal site and explore other news outlets if a different side might be needed on a particular news story.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Embedded video

Here is a video that was shown to me in my computing in the business environment class.  It basically goes over all the copyright laws and fair use guidelines by cutting up Disney movie clips (possibly a breach of copyright in itself).


Friday, September 10, 2010

Week 3 Blog

This week I watched all of the mac and pc commercials and read the articles that explains the OS operating system and the introduction into how a mac and pc are different.  The articles used diagrams and showed how a desktop is laid out for a mac and explained how to create, move, copy, and reorganize folders and files.  There were a list of shortcuts in lesson 3 that show how to do common functions without using the mouse.  I learned how mac used its user friendly interface and reliable attitude to market themselves to schools and educational institutions.

This material is very relevant to my major and profession.  I am a telecommunications major and make commercials and films for a living.  Having switched from AVID to Final cut about 8 years ago I've been using macs extensively.  The shortcuts are helpful in script writing and the organization of files and folders is critical when dealing with terabytes of data.  I did not know that you could put applications on the desktop of a mac like you can with a PC.  I'm sure this material will influence my major in some aspect. 

Outside resource: http://www.wikihow.com/Pimp-Your-Windows-XP-Desktop-to-Look-Like-a-Cool-Mac-Desktop

This article shows how desirable the reliability and ease of use the OS operating system layout really is.  People are downloading software and using specific desktop settings that allows them to imitate the OS operating system on a PC.  Their computers still runs windows but looks like OS.  Imitation is the purest form of flattery and clearly Vista took a few notes from apple when designing the operating system.  Vista is much more similar to OS then windows XP was and I don't see Apple trying to share any similarities with windows.